'There's a case for being in position when you're expected to be.'

To hear this sentiment on Muriel's lips marginally astonished Peter, but he said nothing more than, 'Okay, well I'll go and bring the car round .. You come down when you're ready.'

As he almost ran down the stairs he affirmed internally that he must put top priority on pulling himself together. If he went on in that kind of strain, going off at tangents, giving brilliant imitations of a man who really wanted his wife to look her best and things like that, he would soon come to grief. From the moment early in the year when William had announced his intention to marry Rosemary Weaver, Peter had been given a new lease of life. Every time he thought of it he felt as if he had been reading a communique announcing a catastrophic defeat of the shits. In the hall now, moving with exemplary speed for one of his weight and condition, he climbed up on the pseudo-Chippendale chair by the telephone and swung about just in time to fart with a kind of gulping sound into an enormous green and mauve face, rendered in a mixture of paint and filth, that hung from the side of the stairway. On descending, much elated, he spotted the necessary bottle of Famous Grouse in its place on the dresser in the kitchen. Spotting it was all that was needed. Without bothering about surely on this day of all days, etc., he took just one small quick nip and then just one more small quick nip. Irrelevantly, he remembered Charlie once informing him that ghillies or crofters or some such persons in the Scottish Highlands would drink regularly, as a matter of routine, a tumbler of whisky before setting out on the day's round, so at least Charlie had said as he put down a similar quantity to see him through their twenty-minute car-journey to a lawyers' piss-up in Welsh St Hilarys. It was a fine bright morning in early March of the sort much more often recalled in these parts than actually met with, the air calm and mild along the whole of the coastal plain and inshore waters. On days like this gardeners recently in London, but not gardeners alone, would say how much further forward everything in Wales seemed to be: daffodils, rhododendrons, azaleas, even the sticky-buds on the chestnuts were two or three weeks ahead of what you saw in the London parks and squares. Low in the sky still, the sun made long shadows, casting a light no stronger than that on a summer's evening, clear but not vivid, with a softness that would be gone by May. Cwmgwyrdd gleamed gently in the sunshine, and Peter, who had noticed the good weather, felt for a few moments that it was not such a hopelessly bad place to live as he let himself into the garage.

'Am I all right?' he asked Muriel when she came down into the hall.

'Quite suitable for the occasion.'

'I was thinking really of stains, you know, custard, chocolate, that kind of thing. There's not much else I can do anything about at this stage.'

'No, all clear. Tie could be tighter.'

Tightening it, he looked her over summarily and said, 'Much better without the hat, no doubt about it.'

They got into the car and drove towards town. He considered their exchange in the hall and some bits, at any rate, of the one in the bedroom just before. They had talked like that a good deal in past weeks, with studious normality, like an English couple in a socialist country, fearful of being eavesdropped upon, conspiring to be dull together. But there was a lot underneath that. When she asked him about the hats she had not looked at him, not really, not properly, any more than he had looked at her when he answered. His enjoyment of pans of the charade was r~ enough but had something hysterical in it. Time to play safe now.

'They couldn't have wished for a better day,' said Muriel.

'No rain forecast before tomorrow.'

'I think it's warm enough to sit out.'

'We'll have to see how it goes.'

And this little piggy cried wee, wee, wee all the way home. A run-through, thought Peter suddenly. A series of rehearsals for being parents-in-law, the very image or images of a decent, comfortable and above all ordinary old couple rather unexpectedly turned back into part of a family some time after anything of that sort had perceptibly lapsed. And of course merely to put on an in-law style when it seemed called for would be very slipshod and insecure; something more fundamental was required. To adapt the concept of the couple in Eastern Europe, this was the period of pre-drop training. On his mind's television screen Peter could see an MI6 man, one of the fashionable aloof but hot-eyed sort, saying he would have them thinking, feeling, dreaming like Darby and loan before they were through. And yes, the new style of talk, which was really only new in quantity, in proportion, had begun to be noticeable just about when or after William had told them he and Rosemary were going to get married.

'Well, now the day's here at last the whole thing seems to have happened rather suddenly,' said Muriel.

'Yes, I suppose it does in a way.'

'And isn't it extraordinary, we've hardly discussed it at all.'

'No, there wasn't a hell of a lot to discuss, really, was there?'

'And now it's too late, whatever conclusion we might come to.'

. For Peter, that exactly defined a signal superiority of this day over its predecessors. He said nevertheless, and not in pursuance of any intention of playing safe, 'Oh, I wouldn't be too sure of that. You'll agree we're still in Wales.'

'What are you talking about?'

'There were some people called Ungoed-Thomas over in Caerhays, related to a cousin of my father's I think. Anyway, there was a daughter there called Gladys, a couple of years older than me. Now Gladys had got hold of an American, can't think how she managed that in Caerhays in those days, but she had - this would have been 1937 or so. Well, it got to the point where Gladys was going to marry her American, and indeed it was all fixed up, ready to go. Haven't told you this story before, have I? No, so the night before the wedding a call comes from Gladys and my parents nip on the train for Caerhays - you could do that in those days. I wish I'd gone too. Would they use their influence to stop Gladys's mam stopping the wedding.'

'And did they?'

'Yes. Marvellous, those two being on the progressive -'

'What could she have done anyway, the old girl? How could she have stopped it?'

'I agree she couldn't have stopped it indefinitely, even in Caerhays in 1937, 'but she could have caused a large upset instead of just a small one. What was interesting was her reason for being against the American. He was an American.'

'I heard you.'

'No, I mean that was the reason. Why the old girl was against him, according to her anyway. Not that it isn't a pretty serious charge in general, but in fact this one was hilariously proper. Name of Foster, Ralph Foster. Funny how you remember things that are nothing to do with you. Professor of physics at Yale University he was. God knows what he'd find to do in Caerhays in 1987, let alone 1937. He was so proper he fell down dead of excitement at a baseball game not many years later, but Gladys was well settled in the States by then.'

After saying she heard him, Muriel had begun wriggling her torso over the back of her seat, arm extended from the shoulder towards a blue-and-white box of tissues on the rear shelf. Having captured it she pushed herself forwards again by degrees, almost rolling over laterally when the car took a fair-sized curve, and twisted round into her original position just as he finished with the baseball game. 'I'm listening,' she said.

'That's it.'

'What?' She pulled down the shade over the top part of the windscreen in front of her and stared at her reflection in the oblong of mirror there while she picked repeatedly. at the tissues. 'What, what's interesting about that?'

'Well. Scene from Welsh life. I thought you liked them. Caption, in Wales you never know.'

'You mean if I could think of something like that I'd try to put a stop to William marrying, what's-her-name, Rosemary, if there was just something I could come up with. Otherwise what's the point?'

'Oh, no. No, no. Of course you're as pleased as I am. Still, she was born in London, and I've noticed you've been getting really quite noticeably Welsh in your old age. I was staggered, quite frankly, when you said just now it was a good thing to be seen in your place on time. You couldn't hope for anything more Welsh than that, not off the cuff. Chapel you'd think we was going to.'

Beside him Muriel suddenly opened her mouth as wide as possible consistent with keeping her lips stretched over her teeth, perhaps in unspoken comment but more likely so as to get those parts of her face lined up for the application of the tissue she had now managed to wrest from its box. She still said nothing.

'Oh, er, what line would you have taken if we had discussed the marriage before today?'

'Nothing very much,' she said, going on peering, 'and after all there's no sense arguing about it now.'

Well no, no more than five minutes ago, and he had not really expected to hear how much she felt like killing him at the idea of a son of hers and her only child marrying the daughter of a woman her own husband would rather have married, and that just for a start. But he realized that asking the question had been the latest spurt of the dangerous euphoria that had again possessed him. Take it easy, easy, for God's sake. for God's sake. Watch Watch it. it.

After doing something undetectable to her mouth she put the tissue away and said, 'You've got quite saucy these last months. You know, cheeky.' She spoke in a tone of measured approbation more suitable to telling him he had shown signs of becoming well read or kind to animals.

And interfering with the body after death more than cursorily to pay him out for being pleased at something that displeased her. 'Yes, I probably have been a bit full of beans seeing William looking so happy.'

'It's not just that. It started before that. It was in full swing by Christmas.'

'Was it really? I can't think of anything to explain it,' he said without trying to at all. If Muriel could think of something she kept it bottled up. They drove in silence over the old bridge, repaired now, past the rootless smelt-houses, through St Advent, past Victoria Station, up the Strand, past the Trevor Knudsen Fine Arts Museum, Marks & Spencer, the Glendower, the Royal Foundation of Wales, the cricket and rugby ground and the university and round by the hospital towards Holland.

'Peter,' said Muriel when they were a couple of minutes from the church: 'I'm selling the house.'

'What?'

'This time I mean it. Now William's settled, that's my last reason or excuse gone for banging on any longer round here. Yes, it's back to Middlesbrough for me, and if you care to come along too there'll be a bed for you at the end of the road. Now it could so be, sooner than shift to sunny Yorkshire or Cleveland or whatever it's called these days you'd prefer to go it alone here, under your own steam as it were. Well, I dare say that can be arranged. Entirely up to you.'

So much for the parade of cosy domesticity. Muriel had spoken with all her usual matter-of-factness, even perhaps a little more. It occurred to Peter that the presence of William and his best man-as first arranged would have made no real difference; she would have seen to it that he got the lot, or enough, some time or other before entering the church. This was now just round the corner and the early guests were on their way to it. He caught sight of old Owen Thomas and his family getting out of their car.

'There's no more to say,' she began again. 'These people may be good, they may be bad, and I'll not say I'm not fond of one or two of them, but they're not my my people, and I mean to do something about that while I've still time. So I'm checking out. The house goes on the market first thing Monday morning. And that's that. Okay? people, and I mean to do something about that while I've still time. So I'm checking out. The house goes on the market first thing Monday morning. And that's that. Okay?

Understood? No appeals, no conditions, no stays of execution, no compromises, no practical alternatives. Final. Now I may be completely wrong again and you've been bursting to get shut of the place since whenever, but if I'm not wrong I'll give you one piece of advice. Start getting used to the idea right away. If I were you I'd go left here and park in the Holland Court car-park.'

'Go and .. .'

'Nobody uses it much this time of day.'

So it turned out, but Muriel had barely had time to take up groom's-mother station at Peter's side before they were fairly among old Tudor Whittingham and his wife and son and daughter and son-m-law and two grandchildren and married sister and niece whom he hoped it was all right for him to have brought along only they were staying with them. There was more, much more, all the way to the church and on the broad asphalted walk surrounding it. Some, like Percy and Dorothy, Malcolm and Gwen, old Vaughan Mowbray and his arthritic lady-friend, a few dimly remembered figures from university, industry, Golf Club, various youngsters identifiably or presumably connected with William, came and went; others, like Garth, Sian Smith, Arnold and toffee-nose Eirwen Spurling and two quite independent funereally-dressed couples, unknown, silent and demoralizing, came and stayed around. No family of either parent were to be seen. Muriel's of course were all in England, and evidently staying there; Peter had two brothers living, but these days he hardly knew as much as where. Grimly, with an air of putting down any nonsense about celebration, an attendant removed the two of them and escorted them inside - at the last moment Peter spotted Rhiannon coming in at the churchyard gate and waved, but was not sure if she saw. The small delay provoked the man into an impatient jerk of the head, a bit of a risk in view of the glossy pudding-basin wig he wore on it. His general bearing suggested that he thought he had come to a funeral. If he did he was not deviating all that far from the spirit of a good slice of the congregation, who stared pessimistically at the groom's parents as they passed, on full alert for hiccup or tell-tale stumble. They reached the front pew without offence, though, shuffling in beside Charlie and Sophie. As far as he could remember, Peter had never been in here before. Enough sun came through the unstained parts of the stained glass to make the place look bright and very clean, like new, in fact. The light-coloured woodwork seemed familiar, personal to him in some way, and presently he realized that it reminded him of the kind of furniture, said to have been Scandinavian in inspiration, that had been fashionable when he and Muriel got married.

Having reached him by a side route, thoughts of that time and what had followed it, up to and including today, proved impossible to drive off. They were not so much thoughts as a confusion of memories and feelings. The memories were powerful but misty and spread over, with Angharad and Rhiannon in them as well as Muriel and a mass of all-but-forgotten faces and places he could not have named. Of his feelings the two foremost ones were remorse and self-pity. Well as he knew them both, he had never learnt how to deal with them, and he stood and sat in his place now vainly trying to see past them to his son's marriage ceremony, which he had been looking forward to a dozen times a day since first hearing it was to come about, and which he had determined to take in and value minute by minute. Instead, what was happening in front of him took the short cut and went straight into the past to blend in with everything else. As usual in these last years.

He went through most of the service in a state similar in important respects to boredom. At the same time, screened off as he was from the centre of the picture he still managed to catch on to details at the edges. So he heard the congregation singing - no choir, naturally, because somebody was on holiday or had just thought of something better to do and found it puny, thickened by men singing the air, some of them an octave low half the time, the whole performance to be defended only as far as it showed any English present how wrong they would have been to expect anything out of the ordinary from singing Welshmen in the flesh as opposed to on television. Or so he might have said if he could have been bothered. Charlie stood out quite a bit from the mess, in tune and probably accurate with the bass in the hymns and making a good shot in the psalm - much more testing. Peter found he could remember him years ago sneaking off to practices with some secular choir in Harriston or Emanuel, promising to be back by half-nine at latest to sink propitiatory pints. He noticed that the ceremony was performed by two or more clerics and that they wore embroidered vestments of some white material, not cotton. Parts of the service were chanted. Peter had started to welcome these touches of High as likely to affront some parts of the congregation when he saw that a subordinate figure he had mistaken for an effeminate boy was actually a female, a young woman, not a bad-looking one either. Oh Christ. Christ. He had come to think that almost the whole point of Wales these days was that you were going to be spared that kind of thing, for the time being at least. He was overcome by a great weariness, a longing to be done with everything, but in a couple of moments that too passed. Then right at the end, when William and his bride were supposedly being blessed, he found Muriel's hand groping for his and made out a tear-track on her averted cheek. He put this down as all part of the performance, but it was impossible not to grasp her hand, and to be on the safe side he at once ran up a we1l-dis~ look in case she should turn her head, though this soon turned out not to be needed. He had come to think that almost the whole point of Wales these days was that you were going to be spared that kind of thing, for the time being at least. He was overcome by a great weariness, a longing to be done with everything, but in a couple of moments that too passed. Then right at the end, when William and his bride were supposedly being blessed, he found Muriel's hand groping for his and made out a tear-track on her averted cheek. He put this down as all part of the performance, but it was impossible not to grasp her hand, and to be on the safe side he at once ran up a we1l-dis~ look in case she should turn her head, though this soon turned out not to be needed.

2.

The organ sounded out with Mendelssohn: there in the loft was one man (or of course woman now, bugger it) who had not taken the day off. As he passed down the aisle William glanced towards his parents. Without seeming to do anything at all with any part of his face he conveyed unmistakably to Peter a cheerfully hangdog confession of surrender but of surrender none the less; Peter wondered suddenly what he thought his mother thought of his marriage and his wife. Rhiannon gave a smile, too friendly to be called impersonal and yet still not personal. It was time to move. Those still in their pews stared at Peter as before, with no hint of having been appeased by what had taken place in the meantime.

'Well, I reckon we done the young couple very tasteful,' said Charlie. 'I don't know about you, I wouldn't presume to presume, but I could do with a' drink.'

These words, or the manner in which they were spoken, made Peter look at him for a moment. He said, 'Yes, me too.'

Charlie grinned briefly. 'Bad as that, eh? It's these bloody new sleeping-pills of Dewi's. Finest thing out, he says, no systemic effects, you know, like actually getting the system off to sleep. Well, we'll get it off tonight all right. Look, if you want to slip away later we could have a couple down at the Glendower. I'll be there in any case. Just one stipulation. Don't bring Garth. On this happy day ... this day of typically Welsh family feeling and good fellowship ... our thoughts naturally turn ... to stringing up Garth Pumphrey, FRCVS, outside the Bible. Jesus, there he is.'

'Somebody's got to say all those things.'

'Oh no they haven't. Well wait a minute, perhaps they have. There's an awful lot of filling-in to be done in life, isn't there?'

'Anyway he has one great virtue, young Garth, as you pointed out some time ago. When he's around you know for a certainty you're not going to run into Angharad.'

'When did I say that? I hope at least I said it lightly. I'm sorry, Peter.'

'Nonsense, you were quite right. You spoke better than you knew. And never more applicable than today.'

'I suppose so.' Charlie looked seriously at his feet as they halted in the porch. 'She'd have been nothing but a ... ' He started on another word and stopped.

'Skeleton at the feast, yes. Oh dear. Once again, very well put. You know, it's a funny thing ... '

'What is? I think I can -'

'Just, ever since that evening at Garth's I've had the-'

'I'll see you down at the house. But ... '

They were being borne onwards and outwards into the sunshine among hurrying or resisting bodies and there was not going to be much more of this conversation. Sophie and Dorothy were near, Sophie not looking at anyone, silent, possibly tearful, Dorothy clutching a leather handbag that might have held a baby's cricket-bat and pads and wearing something of which it could be said with certainty only that it was lime-green and that she had made it herself. Charlie backed Peter into a minor angle of the stonework and gave a muted yelp as his ankle hit a boot-scraper.

'Er ... there's something it would be good if you'd say to Rhiannon if you get a chance to talk to her alone.'

'Yes?' said Peter, pretty sure he knew what it was, his mind still on the events at Garth's.

'You know Victor and I are doing the reception, well for one reason and another we want to charge her the full rate on paper, so to speak, but she'll get a rebate in the post next month which she needn't acknowledge, okay?'

'Oh, marvellous,' said Peter, laughing a good deal at the imaginative poverty of his guess. 'Absolutely spiffing.'

'I mean Victor, we thought it might come better from you. If you would.'

'I'll make a point of it.'

'Cheers. See you there.' Charlie reached for a passing lapel and was gone. Alone for a space, Peter had time to look without much engrossment at the dozens of people hanging about on the well-kept lawn and paths, searching for one another with heads raised or drifting uncertainly away, William standing with friends of his, Rosemary with friends of hers, younger couples being pulled this way and that by children, older couples consisting usually of a more or less apathetic old boy and vigilant, questing old girl with glasses and hat yes, hat, nothing to do with the wedding as like as not, just part of the uniform - solitaries wondering what on earth had possessed them to come, Rhiannon in grey with whit~ collar and cuffs along by the gate next to Alun's very fat and unsmiling brother who had come down from London to give the bride away, and hemmed in by Breconshire aunts and cousins and such, but at the moment speaking hesitantly into a microphone held out by a squat man in a white raincoat while a photographer circled round her - all this, as far as it went, Peter contemplated, until a well-known voice was heard.

'Tell us now, when's the baby coming then?' Although Garth's voice was quite well known in some quarters he sounded at the moment more like a Welsh comedian than usual.

'There isn't one, I mean not yet as far as I know,' said Peter, wishing he could drop easily into character like Charlie and the others.

'Awh! Reely! Well, there's posh for you.'

'There's swank,' swank,' corrected Tudor Whittingham at Garth's side. Tudor had somehow managed to shed his followers for the time being and kept looking round to make sure they stayed shed. His amazing lack of surplus flesh allowed full visibility to the spare, narrow frame that had stood him in such good stead as a squash player in the remote past. Its narrowness was extended upwards to his skull, which all generations had pronounced inadequate for an adequate amount of brain without compression of some sort. He had been Tudor Totem-Bonce in the form above Peter at the Grammar. corrected Tudor Whittingham at Garth's side. Tudor had somehow managed to shed his followers for the time being and kept looking round to make sure they stayed shed. His amazing lack of surplus flesh allowed full visibility to the spare, narrow frame that had stood him in such good stead as a squash player in the remote past. Its narrowness was extended upwards to his skull, which all generations had pronounced inadequate for an adequate amount of brain without compression of some sort. He had been Tudor Totem-Bonce in the form above Peter at the Grammar.

'Posh or swank, same difference,' said Garth. Then his manner changed abruptly and he went on to Peter at reduced volume, 'Tare was saying last night he hoped you'd come in today for a bit if you had the time. You haven't been in much since poor Alun went, have you?' He rolled a mournful bardic eye at Peter.

'No. No, I suppose I haven't.'

'No, well we miss you there, Peter. I know Tare does particularly. He feels rotten about that evening still, throwing us all out neck and crop. It's not that he feels responsible at all for ... what happened later; I think I've talked him out of that. It's more that it grieves him that he and Alun parted for the last time on such bad terms. Was that your impression, Tudor?'

'No question. No question whatever.'

'Of course he never seriously meant we should take all our gear away. Temper, that was. He as good as admitted it when I went round the next morning. Perhaps I told you.'

Addressing Peter, but obviously reproaching Garth for the omission as well, Tudor said, 'I thought it was a lovely service and the young people looked absolutely radiant and I hope they'll be very happy.'

'Oh yes. Oh yes.' Garth intimated that between him and Peter that side of things was taken for granted. 'Yes, old Tarc really respected poor Alun. I reckon everybody did. Mind you, there's not a man who's ever walked this earth who didn't give those around him something to put up with. But taking him for all in all he was the best of fellows really, wasn't he?'

Somebody has to say it, thought Peter. 'Yes, I suppose he was.' The words drew a look of puzzled incredulity from Tudor.

'Actually,' Garth went on, 'actually not everybody did respect him if the truth were told. Remember that article in the Western Mail, Western Mail, that so-called appreciation? Nasty. Curmudgeonly is what I'd call it. Thoroughly curmudgeonly. Oh, and did you see that reference in a that so-called appreciation? Nasty. Curmudgeonly is what I'd call it. Thoroughly curmudgeonly. Oh, and did you see that reference in a Times Times review, was it, the other day? Oh yes - wait a minute.' His hand moved towards his breast pocket but stopped before it got there. 'No, I've filed it. Er review, was it, the other day? Oh yes - wait a minute.' His hand moved towards his breast pocket but stopped before it got there. 'No, I've filed it. Er ... he could be called a follower of Brydan if that were not taken to imply a certain degree of strength and vital ... something. Very nasty. I'll get it copied and send it you.'

Tudor said with some determination, 'William and Rosemary going away for a bit, are they?'

Though ready and willing with a reply Peter never gave it, being instantly hiked off to be photographed. He hoped Tudor thought he was getting his money's-worth out of having dumped his family.

There was a line-up in the sunshine with backs to the church wall. Peter had been for sidling into his place at the end next to Muriel, but embraces were called for, not of course with the unsmiling brother, who unsmilingly nodded and that was that, nor with Muriel. She smiled, though, but not for long, which was just as well. He was not going to start digging all that over. There was one thing to be said at any rate: neither he nor anyone else could have done anything about it, probably ever. Who had used almost those very words to him not so long ago, and about what or whom?

For some minutes three or four photographers, one a woman or girl, all showing in their clothing and hair structure what some might have seen as an unhealthy disrespect for stuff like weddings, huddled the six principals together with no result, spread them apart again, brought some forward, waved others away with sudden backhand sweeps. Nor was it lost on Peter that advances in science meant they took ten times as many photographs as would once have been found necessary and shaped up to take twice that number. It was easier for them like that, he inferred, more fun too, licitly buggering a set of strangers about. Quite understandable. Do it himself if he had the chance.

Eventually the consensus emerged that it would be unnecessary or perhaps futile to prolong the photographic session, which faded away without anything being said on either side. Soon afterwards removal to the Weaver house was set going, a matter of a couple of hundred yards on foot. As if the manoeuvre had been organized beforehand Muriel drifted across, thrust one arm through William's and the other round Rosemary's waist and seemed to swing them both through a semicircle towards the gate. With an advance six or more abreast pretty well ruled out, Peter found himself in a second rank between Alun's brother, said on their very brief first meeting the previous night to be called Duncan, and his suddenly manifest wife, who had glasses and a hat with the best of them and very red lips and abnormally long teeth thrown in.

On the far side of the gateway Rhiannon was with an aunt or cousin or so and Peter was stuck, irremovably as it turned out, with these in-laws of hers. He had always thought of himself as a cool head in a situation like that, not for the life of him to be driven into speaking first. Nevertheless after four minutes of total silence, the last three of them spent standing in a row at no particular point on the pavement, there he was asking the wife whether she and, er, Duncan proposed staying over until the following day or whether, on the other hand, they would be returning to London that same evening.

She turned to face him hungrily. 'Oh, we've got to get back, no two ways about it,' she said in an accent from somewhere not very nice in England. 'I tell you, it took all of everybody's time getting him to come away for just the one night.'

'Business responsibilities, I suppose.' Peter dimly remembered something about a finance company or building society.